Growing up with ADHD

Stop and smell the…wait what? I can’t stop for that long.

Like most people who struggle with AD/HD, distraction is our biggest struggle. It keeps us from focusing, concentrating, listening, understanding, reflecting, and in some cases, from being present. Growing up with this brain difference was no easy task. My parents were very loving, and tried their best to be understanding, but in the end, they just could not comprehend the differences that I had. Nobody could – not even me.

It was not until about middle school that my parents really pushed me to get a diagnoses for AD/HD. They knew what was “wrong” with me, they just didn’t know how to help me through it. I am not sure why they thought a diagnoses would fix that, but they constantly encouraged it. For months I refused, thinking that having a diagnoses would give me a label I didn’t want to carry for the rest of my life. I would get angry every time they brought it up, because I didn’t want to be known, even by my parents, as “that kid with AD/HD”. Nevertheless, I took an assessment, and was ultimately diagnosed with AD/HD.

Growing up with this disorder was especially difficult. Learning how to sit in school, not talk to every person who would listen, and trying to concentrate on tasks and topics that just did not interest me, was a battle every day. And nobody understood… nobody knew the internal conflict I was facing. I WANTED to be a good listener. I WANTED to be the kid who got all the awards for good behaviour. I WANTED to understand what we were learning in class. I was just too excited about everything else that was going on around me to pay attention to the boring stuff the teachers rambled about. And teachers never knew how to explain things in a way I could appreciate or be interested in. But put me in a cooking class, a vocal class, a drama class, heck – even a class that had fun presentations with bright colours and videos would have been enough. The school system just isn’t set up to handle kids like me. And so, like other children with cognitive differences, I fell through the cracks.

My hyperactive and highly-distracted behaviour led to constant reprimanding by my parents and teachers. I was consistently told that I was uncooperative, unappreciative, loud, frustrating, bossy, and misbehaved. Over time, this steady criticizing led to a decrease in my self-esteem. Growing up, I remember feeling embarrassed for being chastised, but never to the point where my feelings of self-worth were on the line. By the time I was in high school, though, I realized that the bullying from schoolmates and the reproving from influencing adults led me to feel insecure and unsettled with who I was as a person. To this day, I still struggle with self-esteem. It is hard for me to reconcile being a person with differences, as it always has and always will affect my relationships, the way I am treated, and who will be accepting of me.

However, through Inspire Community Outreach I am learning to appreciate a very important message – that my differences make me unique and give me strengths that are to be celebrated. Being different is something that needs to be admired, not condemned. Though I am often distracted when placed in unstimulating situations, you won’t find a harder worker when given an exciting task to complete. Though I have difficulty remaining silent in many settings, my boldness helps others come out of their shell and speak up as well. Though I have trouble reading boring books or listening to uninteresting details, I am able to use my imagination to be creative and can complete any hands-on task quickly and efficiently.

Though the systems of society may not be accommodating to those with diverse needs, we as the people of this society can choose to be accepting and appreciative of ALL individuals and the things that make them special. The more people who do this, the more the rest of our society will begin to see that there is certainly strength and beauty to be found in diversity… and that is something worth celebrating!